Dead Summer Before Fall
by RECREATIONAL
Summary: What does it mean to be human? Is it the appearance? The DNA and chromosomes? Or is it something more? Something that binds you to person one seat down? Is it love,hatred,prejudice, or obsession? This question floats around in her head everyday.


**AN: Hello everyone! This is RECREATIONAL. I am very sorry for my year long departure and I have not forgotten about my promise to you all pertaining to your characters. I have scrolled through the list MONTHS before and have chosen the characters scheduled to appear. Note, your character's survival is not assured. I am trying to make a thriller here, which would be rendered ineffective if everyone knows the characters are going to survive. After contemplating my choices, I narrowed it down to these survivors. **

**Tiara Smith created by Rockubybaby.**

**Devin Brianson created by Apocalypse survivor.**

**Errol Ekins created by Turdy1.**

**Alexia Klintz created by I'm a Lover not a Hater.**

**Chloe Sanders created by Espadalover.**

**Aaren Bristow created by Uncreativeanon.**

**Svetlana (Lana) created by Z-Chan.**

**Valparaiso Indiana (Indie) created by Annomi1111117. **

**There will probably be more O.C appearances but only as filler characters. I can only focus on so many characters and people practically overloaded me with O.C ideas. **

**I've also given most of the characters here family members. Some with illnesses or disabilities that may hamper the groups survival as a whole. Some with deformities that make them outcasts within the group. This is a fic exploring what its like to be both zombie and human and I want to explore both of them to their fullest. **

**Anyway, lets get on with the show! I do not own Left 4 Dead 1, 2, or any other works of zombie fiction that may appear in this story. Well…except for the ideas that I do create myself. Now, let the story begin! Reviews would be helpful. **

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**WASTED**

**I. **

Darkness. An endless void opening out into her subconscious mind. Memories and images flickered in the inky blackness. It was as if someone was rapidly flipping through television programs, refusing to let her see which shows were decent and which less so.

She saw a flash of torn navy blue jeans stretched taught over thigh and buttock. Definitely a woman.

Then she saw a teenager. A boy. He was in a backyard, bouncing on a large trampoline, performing back flips and belly flops. His shirt was discarded, his body bare for all to see. His dark chocolate skin shined with a layer of sweat in the spring time sun. He was naturally skinny, gangly even, but had clear muscle definition.

He would never be a Jersey shore hotty, but he had a spark in his dark eyes that excited her.

The image of the teenage boy melted away into a pair of hazel nut eyes. The caramel lids were rimmed with long lashes and mascara.

Another boy replaced the image. He was of much fairer complexion than the other boy and more solidly built. Chiseled features, broad shoulders, not overly large in the muscle department but not gangly like the other boy.

He was leaning on the counter of a personal backyard bar, sipping a martini with one of those little umbrellas. Raven hair spilled down the sides of his face which was peppered with stubble. His blue eyes were bottomless and kind but he didn't have that spark that excited her like with the other boy.

The image flickered to a curtain of hair blowing in the wind with a blue sky as the back drop. The peak of the hair was onyx black, the rest of the way down was crimson. It was as if the woman had gone and dipped her hair into a vat of gore.

The image flickered.

Like an ominous sign of deprivation, a porcelain face with a pair of cerulean eyes surrounded in darkened flesh looked back at her. The eyes were half lidded but disturbingly alert. Elegant eyebrows, a cute button nose, thin lips, and auburn hair cut scene style. Those eyes held compassion, but at the same time, held something dark. Something twisted. The corners of the girl's lips tugged upwards.

Then she stretched her mouth open so wide that it looked as if the jaw had unhinged. Those blue eyes rolled back in their sockets, showing the whites and blood vessels. A strangled hiss rose from the girl's throat like a death rattle. Tears of red streaked down her face and her already pale skin turned dead white.

The vision faded to dark. She felt a breeze, heard the ruffling of curtains, and that same chilling hiss filled her eardrums. She hugged herself, rubbing her arms. Feeling the little goose bumps that had broken out across her flesh.

She tried opening her eyes, but her lids were partially sealed with sticky sleep. Her eyes snapped open and she almost yelled at the stinging pain the sun caused. Her hands flew up to her face and she rolled off the bed, cursing at the burning pain.

She stumbled to her feet, reaching for something to steady herself. She grabbed at the nightstand, but her hand clasped around something loose, a lamp. Her body slid forward, her head banged against the corner of the night stand, and she was on the ground again, a stream of profanities erupting from her mouth.

When the pain ebbed away she looked up through bleary eyes to find a T.V, screen displaying white noise and static hissing through the speakers.

That was the sound, but the screen was smeared with something. It looked liked hand prints. They were brownish purple in color.

She didn't think to hard about what it could possibly be. Her eyes still hurt and she was still somewhere between dreamland and reality.

Head fogged with exhaustion, she grabbed the edge of the bed and pulled herself up, her legs wobbling like waving twizzlers.

She needed water.

Stumbling for the nearest door, she all but fell into the bathroom, catching herself on the sink.

For a moment, she didn't move. Her hands clutching the edges of the sink, her arms and legs wobbling, her head down.

She raised her gaze and a gaunt face stared back at her. Her freckled skin was pale and clammy and slick with sweat. Stringy onyx hair draped around her face like a curtain, partially obscuring her glazed emerald eyes.

Her gaze traveled lower and her hand flew up to the bandage on her neck.

"W-What…" Her voice was scratchy and her throat felt dry.

Water. Right.

A pale, shaky hand reached for the faucet and turned.

Nothing happened.

She twisted it again and there was nothing.

She growled and turned to reach for the bathtub's faucet.

For a moment nothing happened, but she could hear the rush of water working its way through the pipes.

Liquid flowed from the bathtub's faucet, but it wasn't water.

It was red. It was thicker than water. It was blood and gore and it seeped through the white bathtub, staining it crimson.

Her eyes went wide and she blinked rapidly. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. This had to be some kind of hallucination brought on by dehydration. Or maybe she was still sleeping.

She moved her hands from her face, and the faucet was still spewing gore. She saw chunks of what looked like flesh float in the macabre soup.

A chewed up finger, an ear with teeth marks on the edges, a thumb, a nose.

An eye floated to the surface and she lost it.

She hurled herself through the doorway, falling to her hands and knees. She struggled to hold her stomach contents down and kept her mouth sealed shut. She couldn't afford to vomit what little water she had in her body.

She struggled to her feet for the hundredth time that day and as she stumbled into the hallways of the desolate house she reckoned it probably wouldn't be the last.

The first area she explored was the kitchen, or more precisely, the refrigerator. She all but ripped the frige door off its hinges and was met with empty racks.

No water, no food, nothing.

She rummaged through the kitchen. Cupboards, shelves, cabinets.

Everything was gone.

She didn't let herself panic. Panicking would waste a ton of energy and she had very little of that. She sighed and reluctantly tried the kitchen sink. Unfortunately, or fortunately, nothing came out.

Just as she was about to leave, she spied a familiar looking can on the windowsill above the sink. It was blue and silver with the picture of a little red bull on the front.

For a moment her brain didn't register what her eyes were seeing. After a moment, her eyes went saucer-like and she quickly snatched it up, fumbling with the can's key opener.

There was no hiss when she got the can open, a sign that it had long since went flat, but she didn't care. She guzzled every drop of the warm energy drink.

She sighed in satisfaction, smacking her lips.

"Now that…, that is a fuckin' good drink right there. Thank you God." Now that was her voice. Warm, low and husky.

She was about to turn to leave but she spotted something through the kitchen window. She brought her face a little closer and spied a man, lumbering through the backyard of the next house. He looked sickly, his gait shaky and unsteady. He fell to his hands and knees and retched his guts out.

She grimaced and ducked just as he turned to look her way.

"Aw shit. Dad, Mom, Lydia, Timmy there's an…Infected…. Wait…"

That was when she realized, that she was alone.

"Uncle Hal, Tiara, Ms. Indiana? Indie?"

The air was still.

"Mr. and Mrs. Brianson? Ms. Grant? Devin…Renu?"

The kitchen window exploded in a shower of glass and wood. She gave a short, chocked scream and turned to run but the Infected man wrapped his rotten fingers through her hair and pulled her backwards. Her back dug into the edge of the kitchen sink and her head collided with the windowsill.

'_Fuck!'_

She didn't scream her lungs out, that would only attract more of those Infected freaks.

The Infected hissed angrily. He couldn't fit his entire bulk through the small kitchen window and his meal, though smaller than he was, wouldn't be able to fit through it either.

He began to salivate. He couldn't wait to feast on this sack of blood and meat.

He jerked the blood-meat's head back into the windowsill repeatedly, refusing to let her go.

Her hands jerked up to his one hand gripping her hair, and tried to untangle his fingers. But he had a deadman's grip and even as she struggled to free herself from it, he continued to slam the back of her head into the windowsill again and again.

'_Fucking damn it. It's so strong.'_

She could feel the blood sliding down the back of her neck. She needed to get away or she was going to die.

She began searching through the dishes in the sink, desperate for something sharp. She grabbed a fork and began stabbing the Infected's hand repeatedly. But the thing seemed to be immune to pain and it continued to jerk her head back.

'_Fuck!'_

She left the fork embed in the Infected's hand and searched the pile of dishes again.

She grabbed a handle and pulled out a rather large butcher's knife.

"Take this you fucker!"

She hacked at the Infected's wrist, the knife embedding into the flesh with a meaty _THUNK._ Two hacks later, she found herself falling face first into the floor. She stood back up and looked back to the window, only to find the Infected man gone. The windowsill and sink faucet was drenched with the blackish blood of a dead man.

"Fuck."

She got to her feet and took a step back, her head swiveling all which way. It could come from anywhere. The back door, the front door, another window, or maybe even the vents on the wall at floor level. There was a crash from overhead and she turned her head skyward.

The Infected had crashed through the skylight, face first. He landed on top of her, snarling like a leopard and drooling bloody spittle. His eyes were a bleached color, his skin discolored by death and blotched with black and brown patches of rot. Shards of glass were embedded into the undead man's face and neck. What had been his left hand was nothing but a stump, spurting blackish blood all over her front. No doubt it was her handiwork.

She jammed her left forearm under the creature's chin, holding it back from ripping out her throat.

'_I didn't give in when those boys attack me when I was little, and I ain't given in now. I ain't given in now!' _

She raised the butcher's knife and hacked at the Infected's neck. Every swing sent gore splattering onto her face and shirt. She was gaining her strength back, gaining her drive.

She put all her strength into her next swing and it sent the Infected tumbling off of her. She got to her feet and put as much distance between her and the Infected, but she didn't flee the kitchen. She had to put the thing down now. It had her scent and it wouldn't stop chasing her until it was dead.

Keyword: It, not her, it. She wasn't dying here.

She backed herself into the stove and the Infected rose to its feet. The thing's head was hanging off to the right, connected to its body only by a strip of flesh. Its jaw opened and closed, saliva dripping over its dead white eyes.

It rushed her at a shambling run, its head bobbing back and forth. Just as it reached out with it's good hand, she batted it away and lunged forward with the knife, stabbing it right between the eyes.

Its body went slack.

She took a couple of breaths, regained her bearings, and felt the back of her head. It was slick with blood but it wasn't as bad as she thought. Well…she wasn't really a doctor so she was going on a guess. Her hand traveled to the very top of her head and felt something cold and clammy clutching at her hair.

'_You can't be serious.'_

With a grunt of effort, she pulled the thing free from her hair without tearing out her roots, and looked at it.

It was the Infected's hand, with the fork still in it…and it was moving.

She stared at it with a deadpanned stare.

"Well…that's just fucked up beyond all reason of a doubt."

She chucked the hand over her shoulder and searched the Infected man. He wore a police uniform so he had to have…

"Sweet, a Beretta pistol. He has…five extra magazines, fifteen rounds in each. That's seventy-five rounds. Should hold me over until I meet with the assholes I call family and friends. Leaving me for dead in this dump, thanks a lot…"

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**AN: I think it's a start but really, who cares about the author's input? You'll find out our protagonist's name next chapter which is when some of the characters are scheduled to appear. Read and REVIEW PLEASE! Do you want me to beg, cause I will. Serious…**


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